Poetry | Finish-American Heritage Reflected in New Collection

The Back Roads

Out on the back roads 

driven by road hunters 

and others who want only to know 

where these roads go, 

out on the end of a long-necked pole 

anchored to a post or milk pail 

filled with cement, 

an occasional mailbox.

Each one 

moose jawed to open and close 

take in and spit out 

the news of the day. A red flag 

goes up if something to say. 

On each is painted a name 

like Heinonen. If you go far enough 

you never see anyone. 

It is only the balsams that 

come out to the road 

wanting to know 

who drives these roads.

Wasps

Once an old man went to the woodshed and 

as he gathered an armload of sauna wood, 

spotted a wasps’ nest on the eave of the roof. 

He mumbled a few words I did not understand. 

Although I was young enough not to be paying 

full attention, I did notice the wasps immediately 

became timid. After the old man brought the 

wood to the sauna, he went back and ripped the 

nest into small strips the way you might rip 

a newspaper into strips for worm bedding or 

out of disgust for the affairs of the world or another 

Vikings’ loss. But the wasps were gone. So now 

are newspapers. And all that bad news. 

True Shaman

Sees things that are present whether wanted 

or not. Benumbs snakes, wasps. Traps fox

with spells. Stops blood from flowing. Makes 

swelling disappear. Tosses glowing coals out 

of a fire with bare hands. Squeezes snow from 

a knife blade. The true shaman has seen the wolf

with tears in its eyes. Dogs no longer bark at 

the true shaman who has journeyed all the way 

to the dead. Would never sell wind to a merchant, 

give the rivers to bankers, frack deep into 

the unconscious or leave no trees behind. 

Sure as there are three flat stones in Sedona, 

the true shaman does not need a compass, 

its blue needle hovering toward the North.

In Praise Of Lutefisk

In late November he dipped the slabs—whitefish, 

       sucker, or burbot—

in lye and stockpiled them out back along the shed 

        like stovewood.

                     Frozen, snow-covered 

each slab he sold he chopped out of its own ice.

That dogs pissed on them didn’t seem to affect 

        the flavor.

The smell that steamed the windows every Christmas Eve 

        preserved his life 

                       and ours—salted, canned 

like meat, dried like flowers, distilled like night. In coffee cans, 

        cookie jars, tin boxes 

buried out in the orchard. Mattresses stuffed. Bank accounts.

Much less could be said

                        that he invested wisely in lutefisk.